Sex-based harassment and silencing in academia : how people are led to reluctant acquiescence

The #MeToo and the ‘Time’s Up’ movements have raised the issue of harassment encountered by women to the level of public consciousness. Together, these movements have captured not only the ubiquity of harassment in the everyday functioning of workplace settings, but they have also, concomitantly, demonstrated how victims are all too often silenced about their experiences with the phenomenon. Inspired by the political and the social currents emerging from these movements, and theoretically informed by the concepts of discursive hegemony, rhetorical persuasion and affective practice, this article draws on a qualitative study of early and mid-career women academics working in UK business schools to explore the question: How are victims who start to voice their experiences of sex-based harassment silenced within the workplace? Based on our findings, we conceptualise organisational silence as the product of the collective efforts of various third party actors, who actively mobilise myriad discourses in their daily interactions to persuade employees to not voice their discontent, thereby maintaining the status quo in the organisation. In doing so, we argue that sex-based harassment is accomplished by the complicity of various third party actors rather than the corollary of the isolated behaviours of unscrupulous victimizers. In highlighting features of academic work that facilitate complicity, we heed to calls to better contextualise sex-based harassment specifically and other forms of workplace mistreatment more broadly

Sex-based harassment and organizational silencing: How women are led to reluctant acquiescence in academia

The #MeToo and the Time’s Up movements have raised the issue of sexual harassment encountered by women to the level of public consciousness. Together, these movements have captured not only the ubiquity of sexual harassment in the everyday functioning of the workplace, but they have also demonstrated how women are silenced about their experiences of it. Inspired by the political and the social currents emerging from these movements, and theoretically informed by ideas of discursive hegemony, rhetorical persuasion and affective practice, this article draws on a qualitative study of early- and mid-career female academics in business schools to answer the following question: How are victims who start to voice their experiences of sex-based harassment silenced within the workplace? Our findings reveal that organizational silence is the product of various third-party actors (e.g. line managers, HR, colleagues) who mobilize myriad discourses to persuade victims not to voice their discontent. We develop the concept of ‘reluctant acquiescence’ to explain the victims’ response to organizational silencing. In terms of its contributions to the extant literature, this article: (i) moves away from explanations of sex-based harassment that focus solely (or predominately) on the actions of individual perpetrators; and (ii) shows how reluctant acquiescence leads to maintaining the status quo in the organization. In highlighting features of academic work that facilitate reluctant acquiescence, we call for more contextualization of the dynamics of sex-based harassment specifically, and other forms of workplace mistreatment broadly

Politicizing and humanizing management learning and education with Paulo Freire

Paulo Freire is widely acknowledged as one of the leading 20th-century philosophers of education. Freire’s ideas have been leveraged by scholars across the social sciences, including in the field of organization studies where it has come to inform extant understandings of management learning and education. While such engagements with Freire have enriched many germane discourses in our field, we have yet to excavate the full potential of his writings. This special issue aims to remedy this oversight by illuminating myriad promising trajectories through which scholars in organization studies can return to Freire’s ideas with the intention of enhancing the future of management learning and education

Moving beyond “ethnic” conflict in Fiji: from colonization to the coup of 2006

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to articulate the etiology of ethnic conflict in Fiji that moves beyond polemical interpretations which routinely and often erroneously apportion blame. Design/methodology/approach – A critical survey of ethnic conflict between in Indo- and indigenous Fijians is offered. The implication of British colonialism on the conflict is underscored. Findings – The paper concludes that the first three coups that occurred in Fiji between 1987 and 2000 were, to varying degrees, the coupled result of the deterioration of indigenous paramountcy in Fijian politics on the one hand and the lack of their improvement in socio-economic status on the other. In contrast, the 2006 coup is the product of intra-ethnic discord amongst indigenous Fijians, which ultimately sidelines the question of indigenous paramountcy. Originality/value – Unlike previous arguments that have largely ignored economic determinants in creating and perpetuating ethnic conflict in Fiji, this paper illustrates how such factors are crucial to conceptualize an understanding of discord between Indo- and indigenous Fijians.Ethnic conflict, Fiji, Social change

How managers, coworkers, and HR pressure women to stay silent about harassment

Sex-based harassment is pervasive in the workplace. And it is disproportionately experienced by women. One reason why it is so common is that most victims stay silent about their experiences. Studies suggest that victims fear consequences at work or feel that nothing will happen as a result of speaking up. But what has been studied less is how this silencing occurs. Researchers explored how female victims are silenced — who influences them and what exactly happens when they try to speak up. In-depth interviews with 31 academics showed that victims encountered three barriers when they tried to speak up about the harassment they experienced: First, they were told they had to prove that their experience was uncommon and significant; second, they were expected to “trust the system” to resolve their issues; and third, they faced severe consequences, such as a damaged reputation, when they challenged the system

Questioning Neoliberal Capitalism and economic inequality in business schools

The burgeoning economic inequality between the richest and the poorest is a cause of concern for social, political, and ethical reasons. While businesses are both implicated and affected by growing inequality, business schools have largely neglected to subject the phenomenon to sufficient critique. This is, in part, because far too many management educators rely on orthodox economic perspectives—often represented by neoliberal capitalism—which have dominated the curricula and the teaching philosophy of business schools. To address this issue, we underscore the need for business schools to critically examine the relationship between neoliberal capitalism and economic inequality, and to overtly engage with this nexus in pedagogical practice. We conclude by revisiting the concepts of relationality and answerability as paths by which to address the current predicament. Relationality and answerability collectively offer (1) conceptual and reflexive tools by which to reimagine business school education, and, (2) space for business schools to debate important questions about the taken-for-granted, but problematic, assumptions underlying the ideology of neoliberal capitalism

Social justice interrupted? Values, pedagogy, and purpose of business school academics

This commentary results from a 2-day Critical Management Studies workshop at the Academy of Management that we organized in the summer of 2010, entitled “Whose business? Business, ethics, and society in critical management studies”. It summarizes ideas presented by a variety of scholars who were actively grappling with questions and challenges of contemporary management education, specifically with its role in bringing about social change while introducing Madeline Toubiana’s article, “Business pedagogy for social justice?” by way of example. Extending from the insights emerging from in this article, we briefly discuss the importance of reflecting on the values of social justice that we hold as business school academics, in order to begin to imagine the possibilities of the classroom as an arena in which we can inspire social change. We argue that academics ought to be reflexive about the values of social justice that they espouse, and that they ought to vigorously and substantively integrate these values into management education, such as through their infusion into curricula. Returning to Paulo Friere’s (1970) idea of “conscientization,” we propose that business school academics should use the classroom as a forum in which to develop what Friere calls “critical understanding.” In sum, these two points present discursive sources of agency to move toward redressing the systems of institutional constraints, which are currently thwarting business school academics engagement with social justice as identified in Toubiana’s article